Calcutta Theatre
historic theatre in Kolkata, India
The Calcutta Theatre or The New Playhouse, was a historic theatre in Calcutta (now named Kolkata) in India. It was founded in 1775 and active until 1808. It was the second theatre in the city of Calcutta, and its main venue for about thirty years. It was the leading theatre of Calcutta until the foundation of the Chowringhee Theatre in the early 19th-century.
History
The first theatre in Calcutta, The Playhouse, was a modest local at the Lal Bazar, founded in 1753 and turned into an action house in 1756. It was eventually replaced by the Calcutta Theatre or "The New Playhouse", which was founded by the auctioneer George Williamson in 1775. It was situated near the Northern section of Clive Street and to the north of Writers Buildings, and built funded by the subscriptions sharers of one hundred rupees each. Among the share-holders was the governor, Richard Burwell.
Bernard Massinck (or Massing) was recommended to the post of manager of the theatre by David Garrick. The theatre staged English tragedy, comedy and farce in the English language by English actors.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Calcutta Theatre” is historic theatre in Kolkata, India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Calcutta, Theatre and historic, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “historic theatre in Kolkata, India” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q60788502. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1775, 1808, 1753 and 1756.
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This entry incorporates text from “Calcutta Theatre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.